


i know (i don’t want to leave you either)

by lux_et_astra



Series: NCIS [4]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Dogs, F/M, Of a dog, Pet fic, based on the castle episode ‘an embarrassment of pooches’, ellie and use the dog as an outlet for their feelings, shared custody, sort of speculation for ‘watchdog’ but not like speculation more like wishful thinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:01:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29838483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lux_et_astra/pseuds/lux_et_astra
Summary: When Ellie and Nick argue over who gets to take care of the material canine witness in their case, there seems only one solution.It’s not exactly what Nick had been expecting.
Relationships: Ellie Bishop/Nick Torres
Series: NCIS [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2154468
Comments: 10
Kudos: 40





	i know (i don’t want to leave you either)

The dog’s name is Duke.

It’s a very good dog name, Nick thinks. Suitably non-human whilst not being so cliched as Fido or Rover. And it gives that sense of regality so perfect for a majestic German shepherd like himself.

They’ve rescued him from a dogfighting ring, and he’s scratched up and thin and his fur is matted and he looks, well, rather un-duke-like. So he and Bishop take him to the vet, where he gets cleaned up and bandaged and prescribed medications.

“Someone will have to watch him and make sure he takes them,” the vet says to them. “We can keep him in our kennels, if you like, but he’d get better care—”

“I’ll take him,” Nick and Bishop say at the same time. They look at each other. 

“Come on, Bishop, your place isn’t big enough for a dog,” Nick says. 

“It’s plenty big enough, I looked it up when I was considering getting one after breaking up with Jake,” counters Bishop. “Your place is the one that’s not suitable. It’s all sharp surfaces and hard corners.”

“He’s a dog, Bishop, not a glass doll,” snipes Nick. Bishop rolls her eyes.

“I’ll let you two sort this out,” says the vet awkwardly, and shuffles out of the door. Nick hardly notices him leave.

“I’ve always wanted a dog,” Nick argues. “Only I couldn’t get one, because I was undercover.”

“Yeah, well, we had a dog on the farm when I was a kid,” says Bishop. “I know how to look after it and care for it.”

“Okay, come on, there’s gotta be a better way to figure this out,” Nick says.

“Why don’t we play rock paper scissors?” suggests Bishop.

“Ah, no,” defers Nick. “You’d be at a disadvantage, I’m very skilled.”

“Try me,” says Bishop, a glint in her eyes.

“Okay,” allows Nick, taking his hands out of his pockets and bouncing his closed fist on his other hand. “I’m just saying, there’s a trick to this, it’s about strategy—”

He glances down at his own outstretched palm and at Bishop’s scissor-fingers. He pauses.

“Best out of three?”

Bishop nods, eyes sparkling. They do it again, and Bishop covers Nick’s closed fist with her outstretched hand.

“Three out of five,” says Nick, frustrated.

“You know,” says Bishop, “there is another way we could deal with this.”

Nick has a sudden and vivid image of him and Ellie curled up on her couch, Duke bounding around them. Dream-Ellie laughs at his antics and rests her head on Dream-Nick’s shoulder. Dream-Nick leans down, closer to her lips—

“Torres,” Bishop says, snapping him out of it. 

“Uh, yeah?” says Nick, flustered. “And what would that be?”

Duke curls into Nick’s side. He’s sitting on his own couch, dog toys strewn around him.

“Shared custody,” Nick grumbles. “This is not what I pictured.”

Duke tilts his head as though he understands. Really, Nick thinks, he probably does. Dogs are pretty smart. They’re probably smarter than most of the people he comes into contact with at work.

“I just thought she meant we’d do it together, you know?” he says. Duke lays his head on Nick’s lap. “Not that I wanted that.” Duke gives him a look that’s strangely reminiscent of Gibbs. “Okay, fine, yes, I wanted it. I want…”

He lies back, head resting against the back of the sofa. “I want her, Duke.”

Duke nestles closer into him as though he’s trying to comfort him. 

“Thanks, buddy.” He sighs. “It’s just complicated, with her, you know? I like her. I really like her. She’s pretty, and funny, and smart. She makes me smile every time I see her. I… I can’t picture my life without her.”

Duke makes a curious, questioning noise, and Nick laughs. “It’s complicated. You wouldn’t understand, being a dog and all. But… I don’t know. Letting her into my life… It changes everything. I don’t get attached. It makes it that much harder to drop it all and leave when things get rough. I don’t know if I’m ready to let someone in just yet. I don’t know if I’m ready to get attached.”

Duke buries his cold nose in Nick’s cheek as if to say, you let me in.

“That’s different,” Nick says. “You’re a dog.”

Duke lets out a huff of breath and bounds off the sofa. He nestles at the fridge.

“You hungry, buddy?” Nick asks, getting up. “Yeah, okay. I’m getting it.”

There’s a pounding at the door and Ellie runs to it, opening it wide. Duke bounds inside, panting, and nosing around curiously.

“You were supposed to be here an hour ago,” says Ellie grumpily. “It’s called shared custody, not ‘show-up-whenever-you-want custody’.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Torres breezes. “I couldn’t find Mr Squeaky.” He pulls the toy out of the bag and squeaks it to demonstrate. Duke runs up and jumps at it, trying to grab it out of Torres’ hands.

“He’s got a lot of energy,” Ellie remarks.

“He’ll tire himself out soon enough,” Nick says. “We were playing fetch in the hall outside my apartment for like an hour. And he’s an angel when he’s tired.”

Ellie wrinkles her nose. “I bet you let him up on your couch, too,” she notes.

“Yeah? So what?”

“That’s fine,” says Ellie. “You can be the fun parent. I’ll just have to be the strict one. I’m not letting him shed all over mine.” She pauses. “Oh, god, I sound like my mom.”

Torres laughs. “Mr Squeaky over here is his favourite toy,” he informs her. “Oh, and he really likes you stroking the top of his head, above his eyes, just like this.”

He drops the toy on her table and takes her hand in his, rubbing his thumb slowly in circles over the top of her hand. Nick’s thumb is calloused but surprisingly gentle, and his finger leaves a trail of warmth on her skin where he touches it. Her eyes lift, walls suddenly crumbling, and her open hazel eyes meet his brown ones and for a second she swears she can see into his soul—

“Ni—uh, Torres,” she says, breaking eye contact, the walls rebuilding as quickly as they’d come down, and he pulls away.

“Uh, yeah. Just like that.”

“Th—Thanks,” Ellie says, biting her lip. “Uh, I’ll see you— I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Nick says, and for a moment his eyes flash with the same gentleness she’d seen a few seconds ago. “See you in the morning.”

He closes the door behind him, and Ellie lets out a controlled breath. She picks up Mr Squeaky from the table and walks around where Duke is lying on her carpet to sit on the couch. She eyes him challengingly.

She looks at his panting, puppy-dog eyes, and narrows her own.

“No,” she says firmly. “My mom was right. Dog hair is an utter pain to get off couches.”

Duke lowers his head, his eyes impossibly sad.

“Ugh, God, fine,” lets out Ellie, and Duke perks up and bounds over to her, jumping up on the couch and licking at her face. “Ah, Duke!” she squeals, laughing hard. 

Finally, he settles down, and Ellie sighs, leaning back against the back of the couch. “Did you have a good time with Nick?”

Duke looks at her.

“Okay, yeah, fine, maybe I’d have liked to do this with him,” she admits. There’s something about those big brown eyes that makes her want to admit everything. Really, she thinks, they’re quite like Nick’s. “But it’s not as easy as all that. It’s complicated.”

Duke gives her the most deadpan look she’s ever seen on an animal that’s not Gibbs.

“It is!” she protests. She sighs. “Look, I don’t… I don’t have a good track record with guys. I get them hurt, or I get hurt. I… I couldn’t stand losing Nick. And I will, eventually. Because I always lose the people I care about. It’s just…” She shrugs sadly. “It’s just the way of life. And if I don’t let him in, I can’t lose him.”

Duke nestles at her face, the single tear that’s escaped rolling over his big black nose. Ellie laughs despite herself.

“You should be a therapy dog,” she says, poking him on the nose. She rubs her hand over his head, then slows, rubbing her thumb in circles above his eyes. She closes her eyes and can imagine Nick there, rubbing her hand, pressing a kiss to the warm circles his hand had left—

Duke whines, and Ellie shakes the last traces of the dream from her head. “Come on, buddy,” she says. “Let’s go to bed.”

They still haven’t solved the case by the next evening, when Torres brings Duke over for Ellie’s turn with him. He eyes the couch.

“So much for being the strict parent,” he laughs. There’s dog hair all over it and her clothes.

“It’s even worse in the bedroom,” she says. “Come see.”

Oh, God. She’s just invited Nick Torres into her bedroom.

“You let him on your bed?” Torres laughs, and she relaxes a little because he’s not making a big deal of it so neither should she.

She leads him through and wryly displays the German shepherd hair covering her baby blue sheets. She scans around the room for a moment, hoping against all hope there’s nothing in there Torres could judge. There’s a stack of books in various languages on the bedside table, a few clothes strung out over the bed, and— oh, God. The single framed photo in the entire room is a photo of Charlie and Luis from their undercover op.

She sees Torres’ eyes skate around, and they land on the picture. She groans internally, and can feel her cheeks heat up. It’s not like they’re trying to convince each other they’re not interested in each other. That boat has long since sailed, out of the exploding plane and past the sheriff’s jail cells. But things are more complicated than just that. They both have reasons they’re avoiding talking about it, and they’re both stuck where they are. But still, it’s embarrassing for Nick to know she keeps a picture of him on her bedside table.

Unable to deal with the embarrassment any more, she retreats to the living room, where Duke is sniffing at the couch.

“Yes, fine, you can get up,” she groans. “I’m a pushover.”

“Nah,” teases Torres. “You’re just a fun parent.”

She smiles at him. He comes over to give Duke a kiss on the head, and Duke burrows into him.

“I know,” Nick whispers. “I don’t want to leave you either.”

If she closes her eyes, she can almost pretend he’s talking to her.

“You could stay,” she blurts out before she can think better of it. “I was going to work on a lead from the case. You could, uh, stay, and you and Duke could help me. Distract me.”

“Okay,” says Torres, quicker than he probably should. “Yeah, I‘ll stay.”

Nick’s just coming back from picking up late-night Chinese food for them to share when he realises that the front door to Bishop’s apartment is slightly open. He drops the food outside and draws his gun, treading lightly as he makes his way. He rounds the corner into the bedroom and finds Bishop unconscious on the bed.

“Ellie!” he gasps, and hurries over to her. She stirs.

“What?” she mumbles. She sits up, rubbing her eyes. “Ah, no. I must have fallen asleep.”

Nick lets out a breath of relief. Suddenly, though, it occurs to him how quiet the apartment is.

“ _Mierda_ ,” he swears. “Where’s Duke?”

“I can’t believe you left the door open!” Bishop says for the fiftieth time, smacking his arm.

“It’s not my fault your door doesn’t shut properly!” argues Nick.

“It so does, you just need to lift the handle a little, push against it, and wiggle the key,” says Bishop tersely.

“And how was I supposed to know that?”

“I don’t know!” snaps Bishop, and when Nick glances across at her in the darkness of the road outside her apartment, he can see she’s close to tears. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says. “We’ll find him, I promise.”

“How do you know?” Ellie says. “I— I can’t lose him, Nick. I’ve— I’ve lost so much. Maybe it was a mistake letting myself care about him. I… I should have known this would happen.”

He gets the feeling that it’s not quite just the dog she’s talking about.

“Hey, it’s okay, Ellie,” Nick says, rubbing his hand over her back. “You can’t avoid caring about… things, because you’re worried something bad will happen. Bad things always happen. But luckily, this isn’t going to be a bad thing. Because we’re going to find him, I swear.”

Ellie glances up at him, eyes wide and vulnerable. Nick can’t help himself from pulling her into a hug.

“It’s going to be okay,” he whispers. “I promise you.”

She holds on to him tightly, silent, and then suddenly tenses.

“Did you hear that?” she whispers.

“Hear what?”

Ellie pulls away, closing her eyes. “That way,” she says excitedly, pointing. “Dog noises!”

She grabs his hand and tugs him towards the sound. Sure enough, he can hear faint noises as they get closer. They enter a clearing and spot a brown shaggy body lying on the grass.

“Duke!” Ellie shouts, and runs towards him. She kneels down, stroking his fur.

For a moment, Nick really thinks he’s hurt, or worse. His heart is seized with a cold chill of fear. Then Ellie looks up, relieved tears streaming down her cheeks.

“You did say he was an angel when he was tired,” she laughs. “He’s just worn himself out. He’s okay.”

Nick is able to breathe again. For all of his big talk about not letting people in, not getting attached, he’s really got attached to Duke. He looks at him, and at the blonde girl laughing and cuddling him, and thinks he might be attached to more than just the dog.

“Come on, Bishop,” he says, and Ellie glances up, smiling. “Let’s go home.”

They take Duke back to Ellie’s apartment and place the forgotten Chinese in the fridge to eat the next day, and Ellie allows Duke and Nick onto her bed in a muddled pile of legs and hair and fur. Nick wakes up with Ellie’s elbow in his face, Duke’s tail across his chest, and Ellie’s hand firmly intertwined in his, and thinks it might be the best night’s sleep he’s had for months.

(And if, when Nick officially adopts Duke, Ellie can’t quite bear to leave the shared custody behind, well, there’s always co-parenting. 

And if Ellie ends up spending more time at Nick’s apartment than she does at her own, and Nick and Duke spend more time with her than they do alone, well, there’s always co-habitation, too.)


End file.
